CSC 400 Assignment: Password Cracking Competition
If you have not already, read the man page on the crypt function.
Use this function, web resources, and possibly department computational
resources to mount an attack on the encrypted passwords in the file
password6_cipher.txt.
Many of these passwords are poorly chosen, i.e. they are short, or
one or more words, or names, or minor variations thereof,
or potentially guessable because they are TOOOO clever, or all of the above.
(No guarantees about only lowercase letters being present though).
See how many you can find out of the list of 130.
Stealing or sharing classmates results is disallowed in this assignment,
as is cracking the professor's account.
Use of fully canned password crackers is discouraged,
as are pre-encrypted dictionaries
(although it could be interesting to compare how well you do with
the performance of canned cracker).
Use of text dictionary resources on the other hand, is encouraged, and
probably necessary to complete the assignment in a timely fashion.
As usual, document all of the resources you use.
Note that the crypt function does not run all that fast (deliberately),
so you may have to allow considerable time for your program to run.
Or you may be able to find a faster version of crypt.
Note that other class members will be running their programs
in the same period, so don't count on having exclusive access to
the cluster or SMP resources.
On Wednesday, you will give a short presentation to the class describing
your approach(es) and results.
As usual, hand in a written report.
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